GSA drops wrestling for 2014-15‘We just don’t have any kids’

BLUE HILL—Wrestling, a sports tradition at George Stevens Academy, was dropped from the winter roster this year after only two students expressed interest.

“We just don’t have any kids,” said Athletic Director Jim Murphy.

GSA sophomore Liza Moore, who joined the team last year, is wrestling for the Bucksport team this year, Murphy said.

GSA has run a team for the past 17 or 18 consecutive years, but with no wrestling programs in the middle schools whose students continue on to GSA, the varsity program has faltered.

“That’s been a problem since day one,” Murphy said. “Unless we have a feeder system, unless they’re working on wrestling in junior high, or a coach is willing to do clinics in the spring with the sending schools, then there’s not much we can do.”

It takes about seven or eight wrestlers to make a team according to Murphy, spread through the different weight classes. “If they’re all in the same weight class, it doesn’t do any good.”

While the names of three GSA wrestlers—Tyson Ober (2005), Jordan Lord (2012) and Alix Turanksi (2013)—grace the gymnasium wall for achieving 100 match wins, a milestone in high school wrestling, when and if a new name will be added, is up in the air.

“A lot depends on if we had a faculty member…to come on board to build up the program again,” Murphy said. “We just need to get interest, and we don’t have it.”